Sometimes a blast from the past comes in the the most unexpected place! This one happened to be around Jordan's waist (my niece). She was wearing a seat belt as a belt!!!! LOL! And it happened to be the same EXACT seat belt latch that we had in our family station wagon growing up! Suddenly I was taken back to the backseat of our early 70's model Buick Estate Station Wagon. I'll replace this picture if I ever dig one out of our actual car, but this one is close to the same year.
Ours was an earlier model with a more rounded grill, which was cooler than this grill, but you get the idea. The color and faux wood panels are the same! Aah, the memories! The hours, days and weeks I spent strapped in the seat belts of that car. And yes, we actually did wear our seat belts back in the day when nobody elses mothers made them wear theirs. Our mother was way ahead of her time in this respect. It was no problem for us when the seat belt laws came into effect - we'd already been strapped in for years, much to my, and Janene's chagrin! It was such a bummer to have to put our seat belts on when nobody else had to! This was very wise of course, but even our uber safety conscious mother had her exceptions. The exceptions for not having to wear our seat belts, were family vacations when we drove literally thousands of miles - makes sense ;-) Instead of seat belts, my mom put all the seats down, so that the entire rear part of the station wagon became a bed.
(It's amamzing what pictures you can find online, lol)
Then she put down two lawn chair mattresses which fit perfectly side by side, and we put our pillows up against the backs of their front seats. We were perfectly comfortable reclining in the back, and ready for a looooong drive. In this way, we saw Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, Zion's National Park, San Francisco and many other places - all completely unrestrained and ready to be thrown from the vehicle, or thrust into the windshield in the event of an accident. But most kids NEVER ever wore their seat belts in any situation, so she was still years ahead of her time!
Wow! So many memories packed into one little seat belt latch.
4 comments:
We had a station wagon just like that when I was growing up. I still hate the look of the Subaru outback and forrester because they are to much like station wagons.
That's awesome what great memories! I never had the advantage of traveling in a station wagon, being an only child my parents always drove small vehicles, our car was a 1978 silver Scirocco and a 1972 green volkswagon bug and I also remember wearing seatbelts, much like the one pictured on your blog.
I have seen those seatbelt belts before, I actually really love them, probably for the memories that they bring.
Seriously so funny that she was wearing a seat belt! I love that kids can get away with stuff like that and call it cool. Don't you miss the good old days when everyone could ride in the car without seat belts?
I loved sleeping in our sleeping bags curled up with my care bear on the way back from Grandma's house. We had a station wagon back in the day too . . . red w/ wood panelling. Nice!
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